Continous Wave Terahertz Source

The proposed program is designed to design, optimize and experimentally demonstrate the generation of efficient coherent tunable THz radiation both in the continuous and pulsed regimes using photonic band gap technology. The electromagnetic spectrum in theband between 100 GHz and 30 THz is the terahertz regime, which lies between the microwave and infrared spectral regions. In the past the Terahertz regime was too high for affordable devices, due to the technological limits in reducing the size ofcomponents as frequency increases. Researchers have applied photonic techniques to generate radiation in this regime. Despite the important advances made in THz technology most techniques require pulsed laser sources and the conversion efficiency into THzradiation has been low. Clearly, there is a need for a cost effective and efficient coherent Continuous Wave THz output covering the THz band. TDC proposes to use multiplayer semiconductor photonic band gap structures to efficiently generate THz radiationvia frequency down conversion by the nonlinear mixing process of two nearly degenerate laser beams. The proposed design is based on the band edge or defect-mode filed enhancement phenomena near a photonic band gap.